No genuine observer can decide otherwise than that the homes of a nation are the bulwarks of personal and national safety and thrift.

God pity the man of science who believes in nothing but what he can prove by scientific methods; for if ever a human being needed divine pity, he does.

God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into the nest. He does not unearth the good that the earth contains, but He puts it in our way, and gives us the means of getting it ourselves.

The faculty of self-help is that which distinguished man from animals; that it is the Godlike element, or holds within itself the Godlike element, of his constitution.

Nothing so obstinately stands in the way of all sorts of progress as pride of opinion. While nothing is so foolish and baseless.

There is no royal road to anything. One thing at a time, all things in succession. That which grows fast, withers as rapidly. That which grows slowly, endures.

Fashion is not public opinion, or the result of embodiment of public opinion. It may be that public opinion will condemn the shape of a bonnet, as it may venture to do always, and with the certainty of being right nine times in ten: but fashion will place it upon the head of every woman in America; and, were it literally a crown of thorns, she would smile contentedly beneath the imposition.